Posted
by
timothy
on Tuesday February 07, 2012 @11:10AM
from the cultural-barriers-be-damned dept.

darthcamaro writes "Red Hat is changing the leadership at the Fedora Project. Jared Smith is out after having been the Fedora Project Leader since June of 2010. In is Robyn Bergeron — who will be the first female leader of the open source project's history. Bergeron is well known in the community as she has most recently been the Fedora Program Manager."

The more we focus on the gender of the applicant rather than their skill in doing the job, the more we encourage people to treat others different based on gender. And the misogynists will continue to blame "affirmative action" for their lack of progression in their jobs. Seriously. Congrats to Robyn. I assume she's the most qualified for the job, though I have no idea who she is so shouldn't (and don't) have an opinion on the matter. But to focus on her gender rather than her skills will only focus attention away from what she accomplishes and to her gender. That doesn't do her any justice, women in general any justice, or Fedora any justice.

I was going to make a joke about the Red Hat Society [redhatsociety.com]. But i realized i would be tearing down and marginalizing a woman for just being a woman. A agree with parent, I take on face value that she is the most qualified. I would ask all the lonely dudes on/. to consider this before interjecting thier jokes.

You are completely correct. My wife is a computer programmer and she has to deal with this crap all the time. Yes, we need more women in computing but we also need people to get jobs based on their skill set. I've met a lot of female programmers that can hold their own. Gender should not matter.

Actually, your question should be, how does gender affect managerial ability? After all, she's going to be the project leader, not just a programmer. And the answer here is that women generally make much better managers than men, so this is probably a good move. People who are excellent programmers usually tend to have very poor social skills and make terrible managers.

"And the answer here is that women generally make much better managers than men"

that's another stereotype that's patently falsei've had plenty of more than useless female manageri've also had really bad men managermost studies never account for actual skill level when they compare the two, or they have an agenda to propel.

of course a good "female" manager is going to be better than a bad "male" one. this has nothing to do with gender and all to do with skill, experience and individual traits

What you say is true, but the point does still remain that we shouldn't treat people differently or regard one person's accomplishments as more weighty because of their gender.

I once heard a female executive answer a question at a workplace townhall from someone asking essentially "How do you carry out the mission of a woman in a position of authority in addition to your regular duties?" She deftly responded that her duty was only to do her regular duty as well as she could like anyone else, and that she di

No, it's not. When female participation in law, medicine, or business was near zero, the same tired stereotype existed of women being unable to work in those fields for whatever reason--too emotional, not logical enough, whatever.

Now women exist in large and growing numbers in all three areas, as legal and social barriers to them were dropped (or, more often, shoved out of the way by women we now admire). The stereotype is viewed as a quaint bit of wrongheadedness.

Now women exist in large and growing numbers in all three areas, as legal and social barriers to them were dropped (or, more often, shoved out of the way by women we now admire).

However, there's also women who got into those fields that we don't admire at all, and it wasn't because they were "too emotional" or some such. For example, look at Carly Fiorina. Holy crap, what a horrible and disastrous CEO she was. Anyone who admires that woman is an idiot. Obviously, there's been plenty of horrible male CEO

If women have something that inherently makes them less suitable for programming on average, why would somebody have them as the programmers of a military system, when the military (especially in those times) is heavily male dominated?

Why would it be an outlier? Why would the military consider women for that position if they thought they might be unsuitable in any manner? To appease the yet inexistent Women's liberation movement? Also it's not an outlier, search for photos of computers of the same era, and you find quite a lot of women.

My guess is that it's much simpler. Designing the ENIAC was a man's job. Perhaps programming it was the unglamorous chore, a sort of maintenance task somewhat akin to sweeping the floor. Or maybe because t

The differences are not as wide or as deep as you would think. Your example of being visible to kids at an early age is simply wrong. Kids are terrible at identifying gender. They look at the most obvious and superficial characteristics. Put a man in a dress and you can confuse kids. Get that hairy chick to stop waxing her upper lip. Heck, just have a guy grow his hair out, and a lot of kids will get confused.

Even adults have a hard time telling the difference. Find out if YOU can tell the differe

What's really scary is that I got 75% (12/16) on your quiz, but on the sister quiz here [b3ta.com], where you try to identify girl and boy cats, I got 14/16 correct. I'm not even sure how I can tell the boy and girl cats apart just by looking at their faces, but apparently I can.

Welsh people shag sheep.
Mexicans are lazy.
French people wear garlic.
Irish people are thick

Clichés are based in reality, but stereotypes tend to be rooted in prejudice. FWIW, I used to teach C++ to fairly mixed classes (~40% female). I'm sorry to break it you, but women are just as good at men at programming. There is one big difference though. Men don't have to put up with absurd comments such as: "Oh sure. She's a very talented engineer who's probably more than capable of doing the job, but she is a women, and we all know that stereotypes are true right?". Do you not see the hypocrisy in your own post there? Women find the idea of working in the software industry extremely off putting, and it doesn't take a genius to figure out why.....

Definitely a wrong stereotype. All the Irish people I've met are quite thin. It's us Americans that are thick.

Women find the idea of working in the software industry extremely off putting, and it doesn't take a genius to figure out why.....

Maybe it's because of the age discrimination, the fact that you can't get a job once you're over 40, the long working hours, the salary compression, the unrealistic schedules, having to deal with all kinds of crap code, etc.

Definitely a wrong stereotype. All the Irish people I've met are quite thin. It's us Americans that are thick.

To me, he obviously meant that the stereotype was 'thick' as in stupid/slow/something like that.Though I do like your sense of humor; I've done that myself - see word X used in a certain way, and reply as if word X was used in another manner.

you are wrong because our society hasn't evolved to that point yet. there are hardly any women in open source leadership at all (a bad thing). it IS news, she may be the first female leader of a linux distro (has that happened to BSD yet)? very very newsworthy. very very surprising. unheard of. unprecedented.

in fact, you seem oblivious to fact that in over half of planet earth, women are subjected, unliberated, partially or wholly enslaved, abused. Take the middle eastern cultures, latin ones, east asian ones together, the woman's lot largely sucks in those.

in fact, you seem oblivious to fact that in over half of planet earth, women are subjected, unliberated, partially or wholly enslaved, abused.

"Company hires applicant based on qualifications" might be news, if said company used to put qualifications second to gender/race/religion/etc.

s/company/country/i

So no, I'm not oblivious as you seem to think I am. I know full well there are places on earth where women are treated like crap. One of those places suddenly treating women with respect would be news. However, I am unaware that Red Hat was one of those places that treat women like crap.

It was rarely noted at the time, but Anne Nicolas was the head engineer (her job title changed a few times, but she was always in overall charge of all the engineers actually working on the distribution and hence arguably 'in charge' of the distro itself) at Mandriva for quite a while.

Famous Open Source project leadership is 99.9% male. It IS news, what other distro has woman leading?

Albinos are even rarer project leaders than women. If an albino happened to become project leader of a "famous" open source project, would you expect to see similar "Holy shit, an albino!" news stories with prominent mention of it in headlines? I don't think that would happen. Certainly in the comments, but not in the headline. This isn't just about how rare female project leaders are.

Another thing is the separatoin of the sexes for awards. Now, in the Olympics, this makes perfect sense. Men grow bigger and stronger, so the spirit of competition demands that runners and swimmers compete within their sex. Now, what about the Oscars? Why do they have a category for Best Female Lead and Best Male Lead? Men are not naturally better or worse than women at acting. There should just be Best Actor.

Same with project management. Honestly, why should I care if it's a female? Is Red H

Men grow bigger and stronger, so the spirit of competition demands that runners and swimmers compete within their sex.

Yes, because the men could very well lose to the women in running or cycling, due to their excessive upper-body mass that contributes nothing to locomotion. Men are only 'bigger and stronger" when you look at the upper body; women frequently have longer legs proportionately than men.

Hear Hear! Well said. I say the same about race as well. The more it is focused on, the more it will remain a problem. Stop taking race into consideration in any way. If you continue to give consideration(positive or negative) to someone based on their race (any race), you are promoting racism by definition.

It's much the same with gender with the exception that a few jobs requiring physical strength (fire-fighter for example) are more difficult for the average female to perform (such as having to lift an u

Yep, that's why it should be based on physical requirements, rather than the presence or absence of certain sex organs. If a woman can lift an unconscious person and pass the physical requirement, she should be allowed to apply for the job. Most women don't have the necessary upper-body strength. But that doesn't mean they all don't.

I agree that women holding leadership positions in open source tech should (and almost certainly will, eventually) be common-place enough to be unremarkable and not newsworthy. In the meantime, it is helpful to point out/celebrate steps on that road. Remarking on Bergeron being the first female project leader does not imply she was picked for that reason, so the misogynists' "affirmative action" claims would simply look silly.We shouldn't avoid drawing attention to the gender issue just because we feel it s

I don't know if you've noticed, but a lot of the misogynists likely don't care about looking silly, as long as they appeal to each other, and, as a voting block, to their government representatives at all levels (municipal, state/provincial, federal/national, and any others that their jurisdiction may have). And, in my experience, it is awfully hard to tell the difference between "promoted on merit" and "promoted for reasons other than merit." Is she sleeping with the boss? Probably not in public. And r

And what is the point of putting her gender in the headline? Are women generally less capable than men and so it's a miracle that she made it to project leader? I don't believe that is the case; so, why emphasise her gender? This is a non-story and shouldn't have made it to the front page of/.

I think what's news is not that it's a female in IT, but that it's a female in an open-source project. The male:female ratio in OS projects is even worse than IT in general, and women are even more rare there than in other software fields.

Sure, but Fedora is a Red Hat sponsored project. Thus it's only natural a Red Hat employee take the reins.

Yes, but RH is an open-source company. I don't know for sure, but I'll bet if you got the employee records for Red Hat and for Microsoft, you'd find a greater ratio of female programmers at MS than at RH.

Because it is news when a women breaks the gender barrier in IT. Just read this thread, or any thread on Slashdot, the hostility to women and belittling our achievements is an very ugly part of technology culture. Something wonderful just happened. Let's celebrate it.

Well, it's a non-story in the sense of turning it into a discussion of gender in IT, when we should be doing is celebrating the fact that Robyn really knows her stuff (at least, based on a few interactions I had with her at a FUDCon a while back) and got a good and well-deserved promotion.

Her gender is important because technology is one of the last areas where sexism is respectable and defended. In business, law, and medicine, the same tired stereotypes used to be operative, and are no longer because women like Robyn Bergeron stuck it out.

Right, because it's not like abhorrent attitudes towards X in the Y community have had anything to do with the colossal under-representation of X in Y, and seeing Xs begin to break through those barriers is a big deal or anything. Today I learned just how thoroughly ignorant the average Slashdotter is of his male privilege...

One of the comments points out the Michael Bolton character from Office Space, and I'm also reminded of hearing about someone who named their kid Austin Powers years before the Michael Myers movies came out.

In the name of science! Let us capture this specimen, lock it up in a laboratory and conduct experiments on it!

Is it big news that the first female is appointed to any function at all? Emancipation has come a great way and nowadays female lead is business as usual. Admittedly there are a less females in IT but that's more to do with it being less appealing to women. Not because the male majority keeps them from career opportunities. There are enough examples of women doing more than fine. In fact, using this tone is rather patronizing and I wonder whether Ms. Bergeron really appreciates the attention on the sole base that she's a lady, doing lady's things.

The title takes women's rights back several decades.Oh, yeah, its a big post, uncommon for the likes of the womenfolk ehh? Oh, that's not all, it is also *techy* eehh? Right, because we know how it goes with women and technology - har har!. What? Linux is involved? I' d never...! Wow, Congrats slashdot.

And this post would not be complete without some lame predictions of future/. articles - shall we?-Fellulah Davidovic, first woman to load a file onto emacs

You're completely missing the point. No one (at least no one with half a brain) believes that women are under-represented in technology because they're somehow inferior at it. They're under-represented because it's a subculture loaded with misogyny and sexism. Seeing women begin to break through those barriers and attain high ranking positions in what has traditionally been a boys only club is kind of a big deal. I'm sure this is a significant personal achievement for Robyn, but it's also a great achiev

...has just hired its first left-handed Lithuanian. Get over the gender and racial/ethnic background issues! They're not important! You're just going to get Robyn labeled as the 'token female'. It's disgusting!

1. I'd imagine that the news that a major distribution has a new project leader is what people should be discussing.2. Yes, it is shameful that Slashdot felt they should emphasize this in the headline.3. But, to be fair, it is mentioned in the linked article...

She will be the first (what took them so long?) female leader of Fedora

4....which isn't any better. ("What took them so long?" Maybe because they had a habit of picking whoever was best for the job regardless of other characteristics?)5. Futile discussion. Everyone is now focused on the sexism. Way to go, Slashdot editors. And Slashdot readers. And whoever wrote that quote in the linked article.

I'm just waiting for the day when a person's gender/ethnicity/religion/you-name-it... is no longer news. As a Fedora user, I really give a damn if the project leader is male, female, black, white, gay, straight, Mormon, Scientologist, or whatever. I just want to know that he or she is competent.

I'm just waiting for the day when a person's gender/ethnicity/religion/you-name-it... is no longer news. As a Fedora user, I really give a damn if the project leader is male, female, black, white, gay, straight, Mormon, Scientologist, or whatever. I just want to know that he or she is competent.

So, you're beyond all forms of distinction except mental acuity? Who cares if they are competent, mentally retarded, brainless (a cybernetic state machine), or even a dead yet dreaming eldritch terror of the deep? No one cares HOW they get the job done so long as its done satisfactorily and consistently.

I mean, no one made a big deal about it when Canonical appointed Cthulhu as Ubuntu's Lead UI Designer.

A few people have pointed out that we should not emphasize Ms. Bergeron's gender. In an ideal world, this would be true. But in THIS world, it's a big deal, simply because women in high IT positions are so rare. Having worked with some very talented female engineers, I can say that as skilled engineers, they brought more to the work environment than just engineering. Women are not inferior, but there are differences, some biological, some sociological, and those differences have huge benefits when it co

Your comment about Islam is one of the stupidest things I've ever read. Before Islam came to Arabia, they were making 0 scientific advances and their civilization was in a state of wretchedness. In Arab society, tribes were constantly going to war with one another; they viewed women as property (as did Europeans), and it was popular for fathers to bury their female babies alive because they felt female children were too much of a burden.

I'll have to do better homework on Islam. Your anecdote contradicts other anecdotes, and I need to wipe away all the anecdotes and read some real history.

But is it a stereotype to notice that women are culturally conditioned to pay better attention to their appearance? It's a fact. Women are TRAINED to do that. This is evident in the fact that more women wear makeup than do men. I'm not judging women for putting effort into their appearance. I'm saying that that's how EVERYONE should behave. Men CAN

...Since they don't think exactly like men, they solve problems differently...
Women also wear better looking clothes, smell nicer, and have a penchant for adding things to the physical environment that make the workplace more pleasant.

While I believe your heart's in the right place, you're still pushing those damn gender role stereotypes. Perhaps it sticks out like a sore thumb to me because all my life I've had friends of all races, creeds, genders and sexual orientations. In HighSchool a friend and I both liked the same subjects, activities, bands, and even fell for the same girl. She was a lesbian -- A woman who thought almost "exactly like" me, ie like a man. Not saying that she didn't, but not all women "smell nicer" than all

You're right that NOT ALL women "smell nicer." I was referring to a statistical norm and my personal experiences. I believe what I was doing is called Synecdoche.

The only way in which ALL black people are different from whites is that their skin tone is darker. And when suntans and albinos get into the mix, even that isn't necessarily true. All other characteristics are completely individual. However, there are certain common trends. For instance, africans tend to have different muscle tone. And soci

Honestly I'm tired of sexism in our society. I don't give a damn if someone is a man or a woman. Period. It doesn't mean anything--it's not some amazing, wonderful thing to have a female in a position of leadership or power, nor can the same be said for a male. They're all just human beings.

fewer high level positions = a smaller sample size.Also, statistics wouldn't say why the bias exists.Perhaps there's a problem, perhaps it seems like a problem due to chance, perhaps small differences are magnified at higher levels

Definitely not, unless she kicks out the stupid Gnome devs that work for Red Hat and makes KDE the premier DE on Fedora. "Linux on the desktop" is always going to be a pipe dream as long as Linux distros keep trying to push these idiotic touchscreen-esque garbage UIs like Unity and Gnome3 on everyone. No one in their right mind would abandon Windows or MacOS for these ridiculous UIs.